169 replies
1d4h
Epic perhaps thought Apple might show them grace after the lawsuit in the US. A kind of repeat of the Apple-Samsung litigation where everyone has a "it's just business" attitude and keeps doing business together while simultaneously suing each other. Apple on the other hand has decided they will show them no quarter. I don't think they're being emotional about it. I think it's to show every other developer that they will actually enforce the DPLA that everyone signs, and they won't turn the other cheek.
Epic doesn't care whether Apple shows "grace", or needs them to, they are going in by force with the backing of the EU legislation. It might just take a year or two longer to get through the courts. They can hold out that long without any problems, preparing their store in the background.
I'm not aware of any duty to deal in the DMA.
Apple don't get to deny access to their main competitor in this space just as a show of force. That is not fair, reasonable or non-discriminatory.
Epic also intentionally broke agreements with Apple before. Non-discriminatory doesn’t mean they have no grounds to terminate Epic’s developer accounts, and Epic is continuing to make themselves look untrustworthy by trying to publicly and explicitly shank Apple. Spotify is also trying to shank Apple in all the same places Epic is, but they also didn’t go behind Apple’s back to deceive the prior review process in contravention to a signed agreement, file suit and spin-out a pre-prepared publicity stunt-filled PR campaign and then go on to court to testify that all of that was done on purpose. Tim Sweeney and Epic did.
It sucks because I was hoping this fight was basically in the rear-view mirror now, but it’s hard to argue Apple has no grounds for calling Epic untrustworthy and not even maintaining an arms-length business relationship in one jurisdiction with them. Who’s to say Epic wouldn’t try something similar again? Apple can still set terms under the DMA, and Tim has been publicly campaigning that these terms violate the DMA which isn’t actually his call to make.
Also one other point:
As of today, and yesterday, and going back to the dawn of the iPhone: Epic isn’t anything in “this space” let alone Apple’s main competitor. They have stated that they intend to compete, and want to compete with Apple in this space, but Epic’s iPhone app marketplace is vaporware. It hasn’t shipped, it doesn’t look like they’re going to be able to ship now, and in its entire history of being discussed, has earned Epic €0.00 to date.
This is funny to point out since they did it specifically to sue over it (you pretty much can't other wise).
So Apple has their draconian 30% cut or there's literally no other way to have an application run on iOS policy, you can't challenge it without breaking it so you can sue, and because you broke it to sue you are now permanently barred from every making another iOS app.
Yea that seems fine, no monopolistic behavior here, it's only 49% of the phone market so it's fine.
This notion that 30% is 'draconian' is curious since Steam -- on supposedly open PC -- costs devs more, and even 30% is wrong since it's not 30% below a certain revenue level or in the second year onwards, again in line or less than stores on other platforms.
If you don't like Steam's cut, you can go to Epic or GoG or Origin or Microsoft.
If you don't like Apple's cut, you couldn't (effectively still can't because of the absurd 1 000 000 installs/updates rule) go to any other storefront.
Before you bring up Xbox or Playstation: those devices are not essential computing devices. You can't function in modern society without access to both a computer and a smartphone. That puts a special burden on the companies that effectively own the software stack on those devices.
Not that I see it happen, but lets paint a PC horror scenario:
- Microsoft starts demanding to motherboard and laptop manufacturers to include their Pluton security chip
- Secure Boot can no longer be disabled
- They restructures the Windows kernel in such a way that DirectX is much faster than Vulkan
- They only allow games on the Microsoft Store access to DirectX 12.3 and 13
- Hell, _anything_ not installed from the Microsoft Store has dark-pattern warning pop-ups that make it both too confusing and too scary for the layman to install things from outside the store
- Microsoft also starts to demand a €0.50 fee from any developer that gets more than a million installs - with some updates counting towards installs. _This includes free applications_.
Do you see the problem now? Apple is essentially doing all of these things.
Dude cmon this is not how the legal system works, you can't just pretend that there's such a thing as an "essential computing device" as if iPhones are a human right or some shit
If I want to file my taxes (in Australia), I need an authentication app that's only available on iOS or Android. I can't use an Xbox or a Playstation. That's the difference.
There are authentication apps on windows, Mac, etc, and you also have the option of using something other than an electronic device.
Before you say desktop OSs are not the same thing, it is to the government. The difference between iOS and macOS is the same as Windows XP and Windows Vista legally, Google only got dinged as a monopoly in the Epic case because of preferential treatment, not because it was "essential" or that the smartphone market is any way distinct or unique enough for that. Microsoft got dinged because it was 95% of the personal computing market in general. Apple is not even close here.
It is fine to suggest abuse and sending warnings, but if you've even remotely looked at any of the legal cases the US government brought against tech companies in the past, you'd know how much of a joke it is when people talk like this.
The app is explicitly not available for desktop:
"Will there be a desktop version of myGovID?
No, a desktop version or browser-based version of myGovID will not be supported. To use myGovID, you will need your own compatible smart device."
https://www.abr.gov.au/media-centre/featured-news/business-s...
And given I'm overseas, I also do not have the option of using something other than an electronic device. To be honest, I don't even know if I could if I were living in Australia.
In the real world, Apple/Android devices are in a completely separate category from gaming consoles.
Sounds like your problem is with your shitty government, not Apple for not accommodating your shitty government.
Sorry dude, this is how the world is working today. A truckload of my local government apps only function on iOS/Android. They don't even have a web-site. They used to have one on the past, but due to "bad experiences" on mobile devices, they shuttered it.
So, yes a smartphone is now an "essential computing device". This is no longer a matter of opinion. Its now a matter of fact.
So your government physically blocks you from entering the government building to get something done? No? Congratulations, you just have a bad government.
I can only watch cable news on TV, am I going to call that an essential computing device too?
I mean we have laws that regulate cable networks so I'm not sure what you're getting at here.
I mean, they’re considered so essential that city / municipal governments will give them to poor people either for free or at extremely subsidized prices. Classes are given to tech illiterate or less able people to learn to access governmental services. That pretty much hits the threshold of a legal definition.
Try it out, for the duration of a month only use your smartphone for texting and calls and do not touch any PC. If you balk at that idea, well, there you go.
They give people flip phones, not iPhones.
Why would I not touch a PC? You're just moving goalposts, Apple is not stopping you from buying a Chromebook. That's what anti-trust legislation is about.
No, they give them smartphones. You are so woefully ignorant.
I am not, you are. We were talking about how essential these devices are to daily life. My post even explicitly talks about locking down PCs.
It doesn't matter anyway, you are just looking to argue. I wish you good luck in life with that attitude.
Human right? No. Human necessity in the modern world? Kinda yes. Some businesses are mobile-only now, not just mobile-first. And you need either a computer or a smartphone for many things now. You're really going to be locked out of a big part of normal life without a general computing device.
An Xbox or PS5 is not needed to live a normal life (if you ask my girlfriend it's even the opposite :)
If we as a society collectively decide that they are, then they are.
The PC isn't "supposedly" open, but open. Steam do collect a 30% fee but crucially, they have to work for that fee by competing on core service quality and quality of life features (like cloud saves).
Apple is perfectly entitled to ask for a 30% fee, as long as they allow for competition on equal footing (for clarity, this means they don't try to collect exorbitant rent from their competitors first). Let the free market sort it out.
You mean like CloudKit?
Apple SDKs exist and do things - including everything Steamworks does and quite a bit more.
If Apple decided to only allow apps distributed through them to use their SDKs or services, then would it would be fine because they'd be like Steam?
As a user, I have to pay for iCloud storage for apps that use it. There is a free tier, sure... which most users will fill very quickly just with device backups and photos alone.
I don't recall ever playing for cloud storage on Steam, though.
CloudKit uses the user’s iCloud storage for private containers and bills the developers (although it’s usually free) for "public" CloudKit containers[1].
[1]: https://developer.apple.com/icloud/cloudkit/
They have different QoS levels.
Steam Cloud is truly a backup service. It's not fast even for tiny amounts of data. They'll even kick you over to an even slower lane if you store anything over 250 MB.
Meanwhile, you can do near real-time app synchronization over iCloud between devices.
But yeah, it'd be great if Apple bumped up the free tier size. That said, I've never actually had any problems storing app data on iCloud. Apple users seem to either pay for more storage or not backup to iCloud, so from a developer perspective, eh.
Yes except Steam: * Takes their cut for games purchases on their store
* Doesn't have any rules about in game payments/utxns, if you want to use steam wallet for that they'll take 30%, if you want to process the payment yourself or direct users to a website they don't care at all
The last point is Apple's monopoly, along with no sideloading; because if I don't want to use Steam then I can use whatever else I want to.
But I agree, 30% even just on games purchases is too high, and we should reduce this profiteering across the board, Apple, Google, Microsoft, etc. Good thing we can multi task, right?
They had the alternative of pulling their software on principle and suing, but they wanted the fight they would have by having Apple suspend and then terminate their developer accounts to bring more public opinion to their side, and they sure got the fight. As a developer enrolled in the program, it would have been hard to argue they didn’t have standing as long as what they were arguing had plausible legal merit (it did, it may not have been the winning argument in the end, but it was at least plausible at the beginning and they won on one count).
The goal wasn’t just to sue Apple, it was to shank Apple with one hand while filing suit with another and they had multiple opportunities to get their account unsuspended at the beginning of the lawsuit even while the case proceeded, before it was eventually terminated.
There is no alternative to mobile computing. Both vendors have draconian rules.
These are devices so essential to modern functioning that the regulators need to come and tell both Apple and Google that unlimited web installs are user rights.
Epic is right. Apple and Google are monopolies over an entire class of computing, and it's a 100% artificial racket.
You can sideload apks on Android and have alternate app stores too. I don't think the situations are in anyway similar or comparable.
Just because you can ask your users to build a nuclear fission reactor, doesn't mean that they can or will.
F-droid gets ~3M MAU, with a 70% bounce rate. It's pitiful.
This is a pathetic case for mobile rights and freedom. Practically nobody knows how to make use of this model.
Installing software should be first class, not buried in the settings. It shouldn't have scare walls, either.
Google knows exactly what they're doing with the "freedom" they're letting end users have. 0.1% of users even know about or can leverage it.
I am sorry to push back on this, but this is just incorrect.
The truth is the vast majority of users do not care about sideloading apks. Apple knows this. Google knows this.
However, it is important that it is allowed without any major hurdle (a warning dialog that you need to click OK on is not a major hurdle for me once you consider that many malicious actors will use this sideloading for nefarious purposes).
Google allows it and you are free to use it without major hurdles. Yes, most users don't care to, and that's fine.
You can't really say that since it isn't a common deployment strategy. If web installs of APKs were normal and had no road blocks, then the practice would be commonplace.
The users care about software. There is only one blessed path to get it.
The largest android manufacturer ships their own alternative galaxy store...
F-Droid is not a good comparison here because the primary motivator for people to use it is ideological, not because it has a wider selection or cheaper prices. The many different app stores in China is a better example of how a somewhat competitive app store landscape could look to the average user.
Agreed. Google's lock-in is much more through bundling and must-default agreements.
This might be what you want but without new legislation, because the DMA ain’t saying what you want, regulators are not within their rights to impose this requirement.
I realize the gravity is a lot less here, but consider Civil Rights protests where people intentionally but peacefully broke (bad) laws in protest. I would consider what Epic did in a similar way.
This isn’t Segregation. Epic isn’t Rosa Parks. Apple isn’t a legislature. Epic’s actions until now have been for a B2B contract renegotiation, not a human rights movement.
People who did fight for civil rights were also punished with the force of law for their civil disobedience. The laws were unjust, but they still had consequences for those who lived under them, otherwise they wouldn’t have had to fight. Epic is also facing the consequences of their actions, but it’s only really important to them that they win. Everybody else invested in this fight (within the EU) will probably be able to get anything they want but Fortnite from some other app marketplace.
Trying to reduce a monopoly isn't as important as civil rights, but it's a lot more important than "B2B contract renegotiation".
Epic wants better terms for everyone, not just their app.
That's Epic's PR spin, but I ain't buying. This was a chance to reduce the fees they pay to Apple, not subject themselves to the customer relationship rules set by Apple and expand into another line of business. The legal, political and PR campaigns were tools in their arsenal to put pressure on Apple.
They lost, but good news for all the not-Epics out there because there's other companies who stand to benefit from the recent Court and Commission-induced changes Apple made to their policies. It just won't be Epic specifically.
That's why I said I realize the gravity isn't the same. I'm trying to point out it's in a similar category, not the same level of importance. Apple might not be a government, but they have a LOT of power and very little accountability. Epic's rule breaking was done to force Apple to show their ugly side, much like how the protests were designed to show how ugly the law and law enforcement was.
Here's the thing when you have a highly asymmetric power relationship, whether it be with a government or a business or any other large organization. You can point out how bad their policies are, and never break a rule, and people will just sort of sadly nod their head in agreement and go back to doing what they do. Or, you can force them to show just how ugly their rules/laws are on in real life -- not just theoretically. The latter actually gets things done, which is why I made the relation between the two things.
Or put more simply: show, don't tell.
Apple's App Store policies are, in my opinion as both an iPhone user and a developer, bad for everyone but Apple. So no, it's not important just for Epic that they win, it's important for the broader community of developers and users. Apple clearly is punishing Epic for fighting them and securing some victories, and personally I don't think we should tolerate that sort of behavior from Apple.
I think that gave them much stronger standing and claimed damages.
It's a weaker argument if they voluntarily removed themselves from the AppStore.
Apple could have trotted out some 'We typically work well with developers in Epic's situation, but they never approached us so there was nothing we could do' excuse.
By forcing Apple to take an action, it concretely showed that Apple does in fact remove access if companies tried to forward users to alternate payment methods.
There is no such thing as “stronger” standing. You either have standing or you don’t. It’s the rule almost everywhere that a party to a contract can seek a declaratory judgment regarding the contract without breaching.
This idea that Epic had to breach to sue is part of a well crafted PR campaign by Epic.
Sure, maybe this was the better strategy given either strategy was going to be a long shot, but they high rolled for what was ultimately a contract renegotiation and lost worse than if they had played their cards differently. Higher risk can mean higher rewards, but in this case it just worked out to be a bigger loss. They were never entitled to the outcome they fought for, but it was their right to fight for it and Apple’s right to defend themselves and their policies.
It's not 49% of the phone market in the EU. More like 36%, and in some markets like Italy and Spain, far far smaller.
It doesn’t matter. A company does not have to be a monopoly to be a gatekeeper under the DMA. The DMA defines gatekeeper (among other things) in terms of the number of users in the EU and revenue in the EEA. According to those definitions Apple is a gatekeeper and the DMA applies to them, monopoly or not.
I'm not a lawyer so please excuse this potentially dumb question, but why do they have to break the agreement to sue them?
Also not a lawyer, but my understanding is that in order to have standing to sue, you must be able to show that you were damaged by the behavior you are trying to file suit against.
This is simply wrong.
Many have sued Apple over the legalities of the development agreement over the decades. They just always lose.
And Epic could've chosen to follow Spotify and lobby behind the scenes but instead chose the PR move.
Are you a lawyer? You sound awfully assertive in making this claim, especially with the slight contempt/patronizing tone.
iPhone marketshare in the EU is about 22%.
I find it hard to see Apple being in the right here. While I'm not so naive as to think one company is "good" and the other "bad", I do think that as developers Epic is fighting for our best interests. Apple's app store monopoly serves only Apple.
Criticize Apple vigorously and criticize Epic vigorously. Epic's been fined for dark patterns, data collection on minors below 13, and their entire business model relies on getting children to buy worthless cosmetic skins out of peer pressure, while optimizing for engagement and addiction. It's a predatory business model that should be illegal.
One of their main goals in bypassing IAP is to make these microtransactions non-refundable, so parents are screwed. They're the great satan.
Source for your last point there, please.
Fortnite V-Bucks are nonrefundable (at least they're still marked that way on their site). Their Epic Games Store policy says: "Also, most in-app purchases are non-refundable", so that seems to extend to other games in their store. Epic used to ban Epic accounts after parents used chargebacks (so you lose all your other games, even ones you paid for); it became a big enough controversy (since chargebacks are the only option) that they softened it and now they just ban the credit card. In comparison, every Apple IAP is eligible for refunds and Apple is pretty liberal about granting them.
I assume that one of the reasons Epic isn't as hated as EA is that "the TotalBiscuit audience" is too old to be in the target market for Fortnite.
I do not. Tim Sweeney testified that had Apple offered a special deal just for Epic, they would have taken it.
Maybe I should rephrase that, they're indirectly fighting for our best interest. Obviously their motives are selfish, but their wins are generally good for the rest of us in this context.
In the right and within their rights are two separate things. I’m not exactly happy with all of Apple’s App Store policies either, but they have their rights.
I also don’t believe Epic is doing this for anything other than Epic’s self-interest. They have no duty to other developers, and this is a potentially new line of business for them, not a liberation of iPhone app developers.
Epic does have a history as an app store. They are the main competitor to Steam on Windows, famous for giving away games every week to drive traffic.
Apple doesn’t compete with the Epic Games Store on Windows anymore than the Epic Games Store competes with the App Store on iPhones.
EDIT: just realized I originally mixed up Origin and the Epic Games Store. My bad.
I guess we'll see in the light of the DMA. Apple didn't allow EA to compete before, but who knows now.
But this seems to be missing the point. Epic Games wants to put their store on mobile, they had android on the roadmap for years. They very much want to compete.
First, thank you for posting this because this was my first clue that I mixed up EA’s thing with Epic’s thing. My bad.
Second, wanting to compete and competing aren’t the same activity. They are not presently a competitor to the iPhone’s App Store. They may become a competitor in the future, pending presumably at least some discussions between Apple, the EC and Epic, and possibly a legal fight, but calling them an app marketplace competitor in the present-tense is not accurate nor justifiable.
These words have a specific, narrow meaning and your laymans impression is the opposite of helpful in interpreting them.
In the context of standards essential patents, yes. In the case of DMA compliance, it’s a bit more TBD until the EC issues more guidance and actual legal precedent is set, but what we do know is that the DMA still allows Apple to set terms that 3rd parties must both agree with and abide by which means having an active developer account with Apple. If Apple believes Epic will not abide by the terms in good faith, they don’t have any reason to maintain a relationship with Epic, and Epic has given Apple plenty of reasons.
The real and interesting question is whether they can do this before they prove Epic’s non-compliance with the new terms.
This will be another issue determined by EU courts, but Apple is not justifying it as a show of force. They're justifying it based on Epic's prior breach of contract and statements they've made. I think based on the record, courts will side with Apple.
Apple has nothing on their side aside from a few tweets criticizing them, that just won't cut it as an exemption to the DMA. It's not like Epic released malware or anything.
Remember that the whole goal of the DMA is that actors like Apple and Google can't decide to block competiton on a whim, the exact thing they are doing right now.
According to the article, they have the official court ruling…
They don't have a court ruling on this that has any relevance in Europe.
Do EU courts consider sworn foreign testimony entirely inadmissible as evidence? It is a fact that Epic swore before a court of law, a foreign court but still a recognized court of law, that they did all this on purpose. EU law might still not allow for its submission into evidence, I don’t know, but that isn’t nothing either. Unless prohibited by law, a Judge in his professional judgement might still allow it.
Depends on the ruling, judge, and arguments. Law does pay attention to overseas precedence, but it's just another piece of evidence to consider, not final worldwide judgement.
In the case here, Epic doing a behavior to go around a store policy that EU specifically is considering bad may mean they cast aside the US rulings.
I suspect if the disagreement is in Epic refusing to commit to honoring a contract and the CEO referring to it as requiring "sworn fealty", the actual resolution would be for Apple to show the actual harm in a marketplace violating said contract.
From there a lot of things can happen to negotiate a resolution, such as negotiating penalties for not following said contract.
I don't think Epic will be able to convince a court that there is no resolution when Apple has already said before and now what they would require for Epic to resume their business relationship with Apple.
I think we’re at least 95% or more in agreement here.
Since the article was talking about Epics worldwide license….
The article is talking about the license for Epic's EU subsidiary, which would have been used to launch an app store only in EU (as the only region where Apple is obligated to make competing app stores possible). When the EC, and possibly later the courts, evaluate whether this is breaking the DMA, a US court ruling permitting the closure of Epic's developer accounts has no bearing.
The EU is a sovereign entity, enforcing its own laws in its own territory. A US court ruling can't compel the EU to allow Apple to violate EU laws when operating in the EU. How would that even work?
In a word: treaties. Usual disclaimer that I'm not a lawyer yada yada, but treaties are generally why one country's laws or legal proceedings might affect another country in some way. Think stuff like US copyright law being applied to Europe [1]. I don't actually know how or if anything would even apply in this specific scenario (not a lawyer and I think it's pretty unlikely that the US court ruling would affect the EU DMA here), but treaties are what you'd look at to find out.
[1] Technically those countries passed their own versions of the US law, but it's all hammered out in the World Intellectual Property Organization Copyright Treaty.
In the US and in most countries, sure that'll be enough but in the EU, the DMA superseded their contracts. Apple might have got away with it if they had limited the ban to outside the EU but as I understand, they didn't.
Why would a 4 year old breach of contract warrant a ban today instead of 4 years ago? The trigger was that Epic criticized Apple, that doesn't seem like a warranted reason to ban someone even if they did something bad 4 years ago.
Also since the DMA bans arrangement that Epic breached before, there is no reason to suspect that the EU account will breach anything new now, I really doubt EU will let this slide.
Epic has been criticising Apple almost every single day.
Apple themselves said that the trigger was Epic criticizing them.
… according to Epic
no, according to the emails that we can all read clear as day
The email I've seen from Schiller presents it as a combination -- it says that Epic has previously broken its agreement with Apple because of disagreements about the rules, and that Epic has publicly disagreed loudly with Apple's DMA rules. The disagreement wouldn't be a problem without the history of violations.
No idea where this will actually go with the EU regulator, but US courts said it was okay for Apple to keep Epic's developer account suspended based on this.
emphasis mine.
presumably apple's ban on epic games is for life, not just for a year or two. and registering a new account doesn't change that - it's just ban evasion.
to wit: you are still banned from reddit or paypal or any other online service, even if you create a new account. if they can link it they'll ban that one too.
and this is a new account that epic games tried to register recently. so it got banned too. Not that complex/hard a concept really, unless you're trying not to understand it.
again, do you think you have a right to create a second reddit account after your first one got banned from the service? how about a bank account, do you get a do-over if you do some fraud and get your first account banned?
If Reddit were in the kind of market-dominant position than Apple is, then yes, absolutely, it should have been a right.
They didn't ban every epic account back then, just the violating account. I am pretty sure most of epic games accounts are still there, just the fortnite account got banned.
The courts and 49% of people would side with Apple even if it turned out they were grinding up orphans to make iPhones.
The EU courts won't, nor will the Commission.
a) It is fair and non-discriminatory. Epic was found by the courts to have violated the terms of the agreement that they signed and Apple had the right to terminate it. They have done this with other developers as well.
b) Epic is not their main competitor in anything.
Have any other companies announced credible plans for a competing app store? I'm at least not aware of any, which would absolutely make Epic their main competitor.
It is pretty hilarious how people think some US court judgement would have any relevance on EU anti-trust regulation.
You’re missing a key point by calling this a “competing app store”. That’s not what it would be. It would simply be Epic’s app store with Epic’s apps in it, the purpose being to maximize Epic’s revenue on Epic’s games. Apple, in case you haven’t noticed, isn’t a game company — they don’t compete with Epic. Microsoft does. Steam does. Apple doesn’t. In fact, given that Epic games haven’t been on iOS in ages, there’s literally zero competition even there.
It’s kind of silly to think that other companies that actually compete with Epic would choose to publish via the Epic store, since they’d just be giving money to their competitor. Either they’ll build their own stores or they’ll continue business as usual, using the device manufacturer’s stores.
To your other point, while a US court judgement is unlikely to have direct relevance to EU regulation, it does help establish a pattern of behavior on Epic’s part.
It’s also important to note that the provisions for establishing an alternative app store are designed to protect the consumer. Repeated violations of contractual agreements is clear evidence of a company’s untrustworthiness, and it would be irresponsible for Apple to do anything other than exercise the termination clause as a result..
Apple absolutely competes with Epic. Mobile in general and iOS in particular are massive markets, both player base and profit wise, for gaming.
On iOS apple has decreed that they deserve 30% of that action. And is now banning the developer of one of the most popular games (on any platform).
By that definition every app developer is a competitor.
And Apple is basically a trillion dollar company. Tens of millions in lost revenue from Epic isn’t going to cause them to lose any sleep at night.
In a sense, yes. The term "sherlocked (by Apple)" exists because Apple routinely releases its own version of various apps
It's not about these tens of million, it's about control over all of the money, and about control of everything on the device more broadly.
No, it wouldn't be an Epic-only store.
One reason we know this is that Epic Games Store on PC isn't Epic-only.
Another reason we know it is that Apple has (arbitrarily) forbidden app stores that aren't open to third parties. Even if Epic wanted to make it a first-party only store (why?), they couldn't.
You claim that Apple isn't a gaming company. It's true that Apple doesn't really develop or publish games. But the App Store is the world's largest games store, larger than e.g. any of the console games stores or Steam. Every estimate I can find is that significantly more than half the App Store revenue is from games.
Finally, you suggest that nobody would publish games on Epic's store. That might be true on iOS just due to the unreasonable terms Apple set for that (in particular the core platform fee), but it certainly won't be true due to competitors not wanting to give 12% to Epic rather than 30% to Apple. This fear hasn't stopped companies from publishing their games on the PC EGS.
Apple claim that all their requirements are there just to protect the consumers. They might be telling the truth, they might be lying and actually just want to make life as hard as possible for the competing app stores. It's hard for anyone on the outside to be sure which. But terminating the developer account of the most credible competitor on the day DMA enforcement starts is a pretty bad look, and makes it quite hard to believe Apple's story on why the requirements exist.
That's a circular argument. Apple is arguing (maybe wrongly) that Epic won't follow the rules. You can't refute that argument by saying "but the rules say they have to follow the rules".
The GP wasn't making an argument about why Epic's account was terminated.
They were making an argument about why Epic wasn't a competitor to Apple. That argument was based on the mistaken belief that Epic was looking to launch a store only for their only games.
In that context it's not a circular argument to point out that a first-party only store cannot be launched on iOS, so obviously that's not what Epic is intending to do.
I think you're confused how this works.
Apple doesn't need a court judgement to terminate a contract. They can just do it if they believe terms have been broken. Epic sued them in the US to reverse this decision and the courts found in favour of Apple. The process in the EU starts the same way.
And this is a basic contractual dispute seperate from the DMA which is why the many other parties have not also had their contracts terminated.
Also running an App Store is hard. It's going to take more than a few days to see competitors.
Well, yes, clearly I think you're confused about how this works given you keep thinking that a US court ruling is going to overrule the DMA on EU soil.
The entity that Epic will be complaining to about this will not be a US court. It will be the EC. The EC will look at the text and the intent of the DMA: to permit competing app stores. They'll also note that Apple has (arbitarily and without any technical justification) made a developer account a requirement for launching a competing app store. And finally, they'll note that Apple is terminating the developer accounts of the company most vocal about intending to launch a competing app store.
It doesn't matter what text Apple has in their contract about how they're permitted to close developer accounts for any reason they want to. It doesn't matter that they have a courting ruling from some other country. Apple chose to gatekeep app store competition on membership in the developer program. To prevent this from being used as an end-run on the DMA, the EC just an't allow Apple to terminate the licenses on a flimsy pretext. And "Tim Sweeney tweeted mean things about us" is not going to work.
a) No one has said that a US court ruling has jurisdiction over the EU. Developers have to sign seperate contracts in the countries that their apps are being sold in.
b) Epic's actions e.g. pushing hidden IAP features were a fundamental breach of the contract in all countries where it was signed including EU. It was never about Epic criticising Apple.
c) Apple takes the first move in terminating the contract. Then Epic sues. And then the EU legal system will settle the matter. That is the process.
You keep hammering on point c but nobody in this thread has disagreed about the sequencing.
a -> that is the clear implication of one of the above comments, ie. if it was a legsl use of the contract in the US that somehow will shield them from dma violation, but dma supersedes contracts
How is that at all relevant to future litigation over the DMA, which is what this thread is discussing?
It sounds like you lost the thread, not GP
Yes, such as MacPaw's SetApp marketplace. https://www.theverge.com/2024/2/29/24086792/setapp-subscript...
"it happened via operation of private contract so it is thus presumptively fair and non-discriminatory" is not how the DMA works, at all.
You don't have a duty to hire in USA, but you can still get in trouble for illegally firing someone for the wrong cause. Same applies here, this isn't rocket science.
Right, the major difference being that Epic is not an employee of Apple and thus cannot benefit from employment law. The terms of their relationship is governed by contract law, and now the DMA.
DMA, Apple can't just retaliate for Epic complaining about them, this doesn't mean that Apple is forced to deal with everyone they are just banned from retaliating for certain things:
I am not 100% certain that would apply here, but if the DMA doesn't protect against these things then I am pretty sure that EU will plug that hole to ensure gatekeepers can't retaliate unfairly.
Even if the "hole" is plugged you'd have to prove in court you were being retaliated against. Vibes are not going to be enough. You'd need a decision maker's e-Mail saying "you know what, fuck Epic cancel their account". Without that smoking gun all Apple needs to do is show all the instances of Epic violating their contract. Same if they canceled your account because of violations.
Here it is easy since Apple admitted to it. Them bringing up all of Epics recent criticism of them here works against them, it is like talking a lot about someone's race when you fire them, that doesn't look good in court even if you also gave another reason. For example firing someone with the reason "He was a lazy black guy" could be read as you firing him for being lazy, but I doubt courts would see it that way.
Holy shit what hyperbole. Apple asked for a realistic assurance Epic wasn't entering into a bad faith agreement. Epic decided they couldn't do that so Apple terminated their account. Pretending Epic is a faultless victim is just ludicrous. Not only have they previously violated the developer agreements they've given every indication they're incapable of entering any good faith agreement with Apple.
They've been throwing tantrums against every company they deal with. They want to charge fees on their store and platforms. They want their IAP. But they act offended when any other company wants to charge them to be on their stores.
You should read the US ruling [1]. This is not about Epic criticising Apple.
This is because Epic did things like pushing a hidden IAP system inside Fortnite to evade review and then at a later point switching it on. This sort of thing has been forbidden since the early days of the App Store. It is a fundamental part of the Apple-Developer contract that you allow reviewers access to all functionality.
[1] https://law.justia.com/cases/federal/appellate-courts/ca9/21...
You keep repeating this, but I don’t see how it is relevant. Apple’s rules are not relevant anymore under the DMA. Under the DMA, companies are allowed to set up alternative app stores period. It doesn’t matter if they violate Apple’s App Store rules prior. The point of the DMA is exactly that you can make your own App Store that doesn’t have to comply with Apple’s rules.
I can understand that Apple wants to safeguard their platform by requiring notarization, etc. But they are playing with fire here. One outcome of misbehaving could be that the EC will require full sideloading (Android-style), so that Apple cannot sabotage third party stores anymore, like they are doing now.
Yeah, its really weird to appeal to the noble intentions of a corporation.
They're both just engaged in business.
I can believe that Apple is acting incredibly badly in this case without needing to fluff up Epic Games at all.
Apple and Samsung could sue each other and do business with each other because the stakes were lower and they were more codependent.
This is what's wrong with the current overly capitalist system. Companies are totally allowed to have no conscience, and externalise whatever they please to consumers and the environment. And you could even argue they are 'forced' to do so by due diligence legislation.
If we let this continue there will be no world left to fix. We have to change the game. I'm not saying we should go full communism. Capitalism isn't bad but there needs to be a balance between business and society with actual accountability (rather than the current 'green' initiatives basically just being PR without any kind of enforcement). It can't be all about money.
I think for US culture it's hard to imagine doing this but here in Europe society has always had this balance, at least in most countries. Initiatives like RoHS, GDPR, DSA/DMA are often called anticompetitive but we are actually trying to improve things for the benefit of society, not just the shareholders.
It's entirely a matter of incentives. Companies are like machines whose sole purpose is to make a profit. Pretty much everything they do apart from that (make products, employ people, pollute, etc) is, strictly speaking, a side effect.
If they could make just as much money (or more) without doing any of those other things, they absolutely would, and any company that wouldn't do the same would eventually be put out of business via competition, barring some kind of external intervention, say from the state.
If you want companies to grow a conscience, you're first going to have to figure out how to change their incentives, which means changing the environment in which they operate.
What do you base that on? Sure corporations take on a life of their own, but there's much more to most of them than purely making profits. They're made up of humans too, and usually it's some executive making a final call. There are many corporate agendas that have little to do with profit.
The meme that corporations are purely about profit needs to die, because it encourages that exact behavior by giving free reign to morally devoid executives, IMHO. Corporations can and should also be held to account legally and ethically for being good stewards of public interests in addition to profitability. In the end they're just tools for organization, and a rather effective one, but they're still run and accountable to humans and human values.
Do corporations do other things besides make profits? Yes; I previously said as much. The point is about why they do the things they do.
Perhaps in the short term, if they can afford to economically, but isn't this kind of like the exception that proves the existence of the rule?
Is Tesla a car company that wants to make great cars and help reduce carbon emissions for the benefit of all? Maybe, but their primary goal must be profits, because they can't do any of the other stuff if they aren't profitable.
I disagree that it encourages that behavior. If you want to change that behavior then an accurate understanding of the current state of affairs is a necessary prerequisite.
Like if you're going to say, "I want <insert company here> to do less of X and more of Y", then surely your first order of business must be to understand why they are doing X in the first place and not so much of Y (hint: it's usually because of profits).
In the case of corporations, because being profitable is necessarily the first priority, it follows that the most effective way to change the behavior of a corporation is pretty much anything that affects their profit, as opposed to appealing to the moral/ethical/whatever values of their leadership. If you want ethical corporate leadership, then you have to make it unprofitable to be unethical.
people don't act out of conscience because there's a particular incentive for them to do so. They act out of conscience, because there's a disincentive, naturally, in doing something wrong as an individual, or as anyone with any amount of accountability at all. But as long as entities shield or provide a mechanism of free absolution to those responsible for harming others and the environment, then there never will be such a disincentive. They can always hide behind the organization, or perhaps the manipulative, false rhetoric that they are simply looking out for shareholder profits.
A false, ill-justified argument can be disassembled from multiple angles. One of the trivial counterarguments to our current wrong state of affairs is that the above mentioned profits are not actually real profits. It's actually people stealing from others. So many people engage in the same behavior that they can't call out the serious offenders without giving up their own mask.
Humanity en masse actually does not deserve better. That's why we're in this situation. If we did give up our lies, we would demand others do too, as we demand a good world.
I think I understand that you mean to say "Corporations", whose governing body is made up of board members and executives. In that sense, there certainly seems to be a strong correlation.
In my case, however, I started a game company this year, and my goals are not profit driven. I haven't sat down to write things out but I probably should. Loosely, my company's two main goals:
- To make fun/mindblowing/entertaining pieces of Art. This is done by working on the gaming dreams that myself and my employees have.
- To give my employees a future where they care about the company as much as I do, feel financially well compensated and satisfied in their career, and have support for their aspirations and ideas.
Besides generating profits for shareholders, let's amend the law to require that business activities also avoid causing harm and benefit society. This means every decision would need to balance the interests of shareholders with those of society at large. Such a requirement could lead to reduced profits for shareholders. Moreover, this change would need to be implemented worldwide, otherwise, capital might simply shift to regions with less stringent regulations.
None of the DEI initiatives have anything to do with pure profit. If pure profit was the prime driving initiative, Google Gemini would not turn out like it did.
The mechanism we have for this is supposed to be competition. If one company is screwing you over, you patronize a different one.
This, of course, doesn't work in consolidated markets, and so what is necessary is for consolidated markets to be deconsolidated.
I don't think companies are going to form a conscience any time soon.
We need to deal with the fact that they're best viewed as being inherently sociopathic and regulate them effectively.
Perhaps a better alternative would be to stop anthropomorphising abstractions, and not try to weirdly attribute intentionality, independent agency, or sociopathy to the same thing we're acknowledging is incapable of conscience because it isn't a person.
Corporations are organizational models employed by humans in pursuit of human motivations. They are not entities unto themselves. Everything is humans, all the way down.
Corporate personhood means that legally they are. If we stripped that away and let the board of governors go to jail for doing blatantly illegal stuff, then they might stop being sociopathic.
I'd also like a pony.
No, they'd still be sociopathic. They'd do the absolute minimum they have to do under the law, and no more than that - exactly as a sociopath would if watched by someone with the ability to hurt them.
Conscience is fundamentally a trait that requires some kind of physical personhood - an actual self-identity with empathy attached to it. Corporations, being pure legal fiction, have neither.
This is why it is imperative to keep them as small and toothless as we possibly can as a society, even beyond issues with monopolies.
But in the case of the boards being mentioned, the sociopathy is combined with competition between members that doesn't exist right now. If one board member suggests doing something that would be negatively viewed but another doesn't, they are then competing with each other for the direction of the company as opposed to working together to do whatever sociopathic things serves both their best interests.
Sociopathy is all about driving the interests of the individual. Boards not being liable for the actions of companies allows those interests to always be aligned. Taking that away would require them to think about what's good for the business but also what's good for themselves and those things won't always align for all board members the way they do now.
I wasn't referring to board members being sociopathic as people, but to the whole entity being sociopathic as a whole. That is generally the case for any organization in direct proportion to its size, even if none of the constituent members are sociopaths.
The problem is that the more people you have working together on something, the less you can rely on informal human interactions to keep things running, and the more written rules and rigid processes you need. Those written rules and rigid processes increasingly take out human factors (such as empathy) out of the equation, and the result is that the entity as a whole behaves in an increasingly sociopathic manner even when its goals (as set by e.g. the board) are ostensibly beneficial.
Capitalism is a system of private property and voluntary exchange. There's tons of accountability - people can stop buying and interacting with these companies.
This isn't always the case. Some of these companies own and run the only methods of doing certain things. There are some places, for example, where you can't use cash to pay for things. That means that, in those places, you cannot stop buying and interacting with Visa and Mastercard, for example.
What is a "overly" capitalist system? Where we would find companies with a conscience for example? Argentina?
If you want to dedicate your company to a purpose over profit, it should be something like this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_purpose_corporation
"Capitalist" is a nonsense term that no longer carries any meaning.
There is a revolving door between government and corporate leadership.
There is no functional difference between corporate America and public service at this point in time.
One does not rule the other: they are one and the same.
Social media companies have entire teams run by Federal law enforcement.
Federal leadership draws its senior staff from companies like Google.
It is impossible to conduct business without thoroughly invasive involvement of multiple layers of government telling you what you can do, how you must do it, tracking your actions to ensure you comply, and levying obscene punishments if you don't.
For this "service" you are charged a level of tax that would make the Pharaohs green with envy.
Most senior leaders I've experienced are preserving profits so they can maintain headcount. Is it without conscience to make sure thousands of people retain jobs? Even if it's ego driven it's still mutually beneficial.
Hard not to act as they do when its consumers happily reward them with their money.
Epic isn't squeaky-clean, but Apple is making dangerous and dumb decisions in this whole debate.
Banning third-party payments was one thing, but then Apple banned publishers from TELLING people about the ability to pay through a Web site.
That is not just unnecessary from a business standpoint (since the vast majority of people opt for the most convenient thing); but it's so offensive that it invites crackdowns, implemented by ignorant politicians and legislative bodies... hurting Apple's bottom line.
Apple is tarnishing its image and earning it a place among the true offenders of "big tech," a place it mostly doesn't belong because it's not a gatekeeper to huge swaths of the Internet and commerce the way Google, Amazon, and Meta are.
Apple is a billion (nay trillion) dollar company with the best lawyers and accountants in the world. They clearly believe that the added uncertainty and negative perception that could be attached to their brand by allowing systems that can increase fraud and malfeasance is more harmful to their bottom line than maintaining their walled garden with all the accompanying "crackdowns".
I, for one, agree with them. I would much rather keep the existing system for both myself and my extended family members and people who rely on me as their tech person than allow these third-party vultures to further complicate and enshittify the system. In the current case, if my parents bought something on their phone, I know exactly where to go to see the purchase and can easily help them refund it or, if it's a subscription, cancel it. Corporations misleading people into using external payment systems and channels in order to make a quicker buck (and keep more of that buck) is easily a worse experience for everyone involved except the vultures.
It seems pretty clear what should happen here: Apple should be able to require you to accept their payment system, but not to require you to charge uniform pricing across payment systems, and not be able to charge you anything for sales outside of their payment system.
Now you can continue to use Apple's payment system all you like, but if Apple continues to charge 30% when e.g. Stripe charges ~3%, you're going to pay the difference for the privilege.
And with any luck that would encourage Apple to match Stripe's fees, but either way, now the choice is yours instead of the extra fees being hidden and mandatory.
How does that seem clear? Apple should provide services and support for people using the payment system without getting any gain from that system?
You're being disingenuous to suggest that the only benefit Apple provides is a payment system.
The test of whether they're in compliance should be whether it's feasible to sell an app to an iOS user without paying anything to Apple.
Apple can charge for whatever they want, but they can't put up a troll bridge between other businesses and their customers. Then you can choose whether to use their service or not. If they want to charge for payment processing, you can use Stripe or Paypal. If they want to charge for XCode, you can use VSCode or emacs. If they want to charge for app distribution, you can use the Epic Games Store -- or Google Play -- or host it yourself on AWS or your own servers. Whatever they want to charge for, they have to open up to competition.
If their services are good and well-priced then people will choose them even when they have an alternative. If they're not, they won't.
That's just the opposite kind of naive. Companies are still for the most part run by CEOs, and many of those CEOs have tremendous egos and most of them have a tremendous ability to direct the actions of those companies. Look at Tesla and Twitter lawsuits- they're clearly in Musks's interests.
Companies aren't minds of their own directing their own actions. Tim cook or some other high level executive is deciding these actions. Stop abrogating the direction of the literal directors
Twitter is a private company and Apple has a board of directors very interested in not rocking the boat
That’s very much a Pyrrhic victory if Eoic doesn’t have access to the US market. The court ruling in the US said that Apple has the right to terminate their account.
From the linked article
This is about Epic having access to the EU market.
That’s why it’s a Pyrrhic victory. They have access to the EU market which is much less profitable than the US market.
"Thin edge of the wedge" might be the better way to see it?
Epic have cracked open the walled garden in one part of the world (EU).
They need to consolidate that win in the EU so it doesn't disappear, then leverage it to break open the walled garden in other places as well.
Epic is just Tencent which is an organ of the Chinese state. They might have been able to break open Apple like an egg in Europe but the final boss battle is going to be much harder for them.
This is total nonsense, Tencent only has a minority stake in Epic, like they do with most other gaming companies.
Pyrrhic implies that the battle is over. I see it more as a foothold for a much longer battle. I'm sure North America and Asia aren't ignoring this whole ordeal.
It should also be noted that this article specifically talks about Epic's Sweden AB account being banned. It doesn't affect the state of the US account (which may very well be banned anyway).
Other way around, "victory" implies the battle is over, Pyrrhic as a modifier implies a victory that inflicted such a devastating toll that it was tantamount to defeat.
Right now they have access to neither. A less-than-complete win is not a Phyrric victory.
Apple Terminates Epic Games' Developer Account (USA)(2020) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24309632
As long as Forkknife continues to print money, they can afford the battle.
Apple is asking for a clear commitment to honor its contract this time. I'm pretty sure a court ruling on reinstating the account isn't going to also require a clear commitment to honor the contract.
Parts of Apple's DPLA are likely unenforceable in the EU going forward.
Attempting to enforce an "illegal" contract provision seems pretty "emotional" to me. Apple is finally in a position to lose their monopoly grip on a platform software store, and they clearly will stop at nothing to stop the loss of that revenue, this is obviously an existential problem for them.
It certainly threatens their app store revenue, and by extension market value, so it's rational for them to push back, but by no means is it an "existential problem". Apple is quite a bit more than just the app store.
There's probably risks on both sides here, too: Playing hardball with EU regulators and courts could cost them a lot of money.
If your vision for your company only extends to the next quarterly earnings report, sure, it's "rational."
If you consider the fact that every other participant in the market dislikes this practice, that this dislike has finally risen to the level of government involvement, and that laws are about to be written taking it away from you, then clutching it to your chest is best understood as an emotional position.
It's rooted in a desire to not lose the past while attempting to deny that any other future could possibly exist. It's classic denial, on a trillion dollar corporate level.
I fully agree that what they’re doing now is absurd and way too much. But no resistance at all might expose them to shareholder action in the US.
Still, about 10% of the pushback they’ve been showing so far would have probably been plenty.
It's hard to read it as anything but emotional. It's pure display of power, Apple is willing to hurt iOS users to make a point to other developers.
Epic Games was willing to hurt their iOS users by knowingly, wilfully, and strategically breaching Apple's developer agreement in a way they knew would result in Fortnite being removed from the store. Then they manipulated their customers into directing their anger towards Apple even though it was Epic's wilful actions were to blame.
I'd be a little emotional too.
Apple has manipulated the entire global population into thinking what they are doing is reasonable. It's BS and someone has to stand up to them.
Epic is sending a strong signal to regulators that they're malicious, and can't be trusted to police themselves. It's a terrible look under the circumstances.
You misspelled Apple
It is quite unusual to cheer for Goliath putting a David to the knife. Sure, Apple makes great premium hardware but IMO, their monopolistic actions in the digital space is something to be truly wary of.
This is a well-timed account deactivation by Apple to prevent Epic from publishing its app store in Apple's app store with iOS 17.4
I think with Samsung, Apple had little choice. If you need to buy over 200 million high res mobile screens per year you have very few choices. Exact numbers on Samsung’s end aren’t readily available, but semiconductor components are by far their biggest segment and Apple is probably their only significant external customer.
I am absolutely sure Apple would love to cut Samsung off at the knees, but not if they do it to themselves at the same time. Samsung poses a much greater threat to Apple than all the third party app stores that could be dreamed up.
It’s a really interesting mutually assured destruction situation.
Epic and Apple, on the other hand, can both be fine without each other, so I wouldn’t expect them to work through the animosity
Very different. Steve was taking Samsung to court partly ( or largely ) taking Android with it. But Tim wasn't a supporter of that, or at least behind the scene he was dealing with Samsung ( or Samsung Display, Samsung Foundry and Samsung Memory divisions directly ). So yes it was all it's just business in large because Tim was there to smooth things out. Or partly because Tim knew they cant do it without Samsung. Zero Chance at the time and they wasn't a trillion dollar company then.
I dont see any similarities here with Apple and Epic.